Spain durring the Spanish Civil War

[nativeabuse]

What was it really like living under Socialism during the Spanish civil war?

Everyone always says that it is the 'closest thing to Communism ever achieved' but I was wondering how true this claim actually is. Are there many first hand accounts available that tell of what it was like living in those conditions?

As of posting this my knowledge basically amounts to what I've gotten off of Wikipedia, so any information, sources, or just analysis/opinions would be really helpful to me.

[Two Buck Chuck]

I don't know who that "everyone" is, but I wouldn't say revolutionary parts of Spain were anything close to communism. I've heard people say things like that about the CNT-controlled parts of Catalonia, but that certainly wasn't communism.

[Zeno]

I've been doing a lot of reading on the Spanish Revolution recently, so I have 3 excellent sources to recommend:

1) Anarchists in the Spanish Revolution by Jose Peirats.
This is a history of the Spanish anarchist movement with particular focus on the revolution. Focuses more on the political and military side of things.

2) The Anarchist Collectives: Workers' Self-management in the Spanish Revolution 1936-1939
This one's really good. Gives detailed descriptions of how collectivization came about and functioned, both on the small scale (how did farms work together, how did factories function) and large scale (how did the whole economy work, what sorts of money were used). Highly recommended, and as a bonus it's available free as a pdf in the LibCom library (can't post the link, I'm not at 25 posts yet).

3) Spain, 1936-1939: Social Revolution and Counter-Revolution
This is a collection of articles written for Spain and the World, a Spanish newspaper printed at the time of the revolution. Part 2 of the book has some great articles on daily life in anarchist Spain, including a really interesting one about how Barcelona's transit system functioned.

[billydan225]

I thought nationalist spain was fascist under Franco

[Art Vandelay]

Spain during the civil war was really a cluster fuck and one of the worst squandering of revolutionary potential by the revolutionary left. You had the Communists, being backed by the soviet union who were an outright counter-revolutionary force. You had the POUM, a sort of Trotskyist organization which fucked up by aligning themselves with said fellow communists, who eventually had their party outlawed, their leaders arrested and Nin's skin peeled off. Next you had the anarchists (predominantly grouped in the CNT-FAI) who were oh so radical enough to enter into a bourgeois government. Ultimately the 3 groups above helped pave the way for fascist take over.

As for the idea that it was socialism, this simply isn't true. Socialism is a global mode of production, characterized by statelessness and classlessness and cannot be achieved within the confines of a section of a country engaged in a civil war.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Everyone always says that it is the 'closest thing to Communism ever achieved'

Can you guess why that was?
The communists in those days were all stalinists, their only goal was to get the communist party into power.
It was the anarchists who created this society "closest to communism ever achieved", not the communists.


but I was wondering how true this claim actually is. Are there many first hand accounts available that tell of what it was like living in those conditions?

There are books, such as "Homage to Catalonia".


As of posting this my knowledge basically amounts to what I've gotten off of Wikipedia, so any information, sources, or just analysis/opinions would be really helpful to me.

My opinion is that if the anarchists were not as strong as they were in that time, then it would never have come as close to communism as it did. My opinion is that the anarchists were the ones who truly fought for workers control of the means of production, while the communists repressed any workers who tried to do this.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

I thought nationalist spain was fascist under Franco

Yes, but we are talking about the republican side.

[Skyhilist]

Here is a good film on the matter: I0XhRnJz8fU

Frankly, I think it was one of the closest things to real communism we've had (excluding primitive communism obviously). The reason it fell was due to a few mistakes that were made.

1. The CNT-FAI didn't support Moroccan anarchists who could have aided them in return in defense against fascists.

2. They didn't do a very good job of preparing for Franco's regime.

3. They made no attempts to build any sort of international defense front where comrades from all over the world could help protect them after they took over.

4. They didn't try very hard to build military alliances with other countries that were fighting against the fascists (although obviously, this one might have failed anyways).

5. They didn't do a very good job of spreading the revolution or making it international (obviously).

So basically, there were a few external failures that led to their downfall. Internally though, they (in my opinion) were well on their way.

[billydan225]

I thought republican spain was a democracy

[Skyhilist]

I thought republican spain was a democracy

Yes, and it was also anarchist.

[DarkPast]

I thought republican spain was a democracy

I think you're confusing Republican Spain as a state and the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War.

The latter was a loose alliance of "leftists" (Stalinists, Trots and Anarchists, but also social democrats etc.) though of course there was a lot of infighting and back stabbing.

On the other hand, the Nationalist side was composed not only of fascists, but also included conservatives, the religious right etc.

[Yugo45]

So, how accurate is this wiki article?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Revolution

[TheRedAnarchist23]

I thought republican spain was a democracy

It was a parlamentarist republic. The only true democracy is stateless.


So, how accurate is this wiki article?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Revolution

I think it is good.

[TheEmancipator]

Catalonia was almost certainly implementing anarchist/communist reforms, and parts of the Republican factions were going to do the same (most notably some self-proclaimed trotskyists). However PSOE and PCE were essentially under control by Stalinists, and were ordered to delay any potential reforms in Republican Spain in order to officially win the war, but mainly due to Stalin's dislike of the anti-authoritarian brand of communism and the syndicalist approach instead of statist. He knew full well that if Spain's revolution was successfull it would pose a threat to his doctrine in USSR. So via the Comintern he betrayed numerous Republican factions by refusing to supply them.

He did exactly the same thing to France. When their Popular Front won the elections he ordered they "postpone the revolution". Another reason why Stalin is quite simply a traitor to our cause, and a nationalist as much as Franco is, putting the USSR's interests above workers' struggle and revolutionary plans.

[human strike]

I'm currently writing a paper that deals in part with this question of to what extent communist principles were implemented during the revolution, as well as being a wider critique of the CNT-FAI and anarchist movement in Spain at the time. I hope to have finished in about a week and I'll post it up here if people want.

Abstract: When considering the reasons for the failure of the 1936 Spanish Revolution, the repression meted out by the counter-revolution has received much attention in the general historiography, as well as in the analysis of the revolutionary left. What has arguably received much less attention is the characteristics and contradictions within the ideology of the movement itself. Despite its avowed opposition to cooperation with governments of any kind and its explicit ‘anti-political’ stance, there was a tendency within the CNT to ‘collaborate’ with the Republican state and consequently limit revolutionary struggle. In no small part this tendency was borne out of the decision to place anti-fascism at the fore of the union’s activities. However, there are deeper reasons and elements within anarcho-syndicalist ideology itself that explain why the social revolution that erupted in Spain in July 1936 failed to survive and expand.

In the meantime though, I'm using a lot of the ideas in Gilles Dauvé's essay When Insurrections Die (http://endnotes.org.uk/articles/9), and that's definitely worth a read.

[garrus]

What was it really like living under Socialism during the Spanish civil war?

Everyone always says that it is the 'closest thing to Communism ever achieved' but I was wondering how true this claim actually is. Are there many first hand accounts available that tell of what it was like living in those conditions?

As of posting this my knowledge basically amounts to what I've gotten off of Wikipedia, so any information, sources, or just analysis/opinions would be really helpful to me.

Living in catalonia - aragon at summer 1936 may have resembled a post-revolutionary society, but with an expiration date.

[canto-faire]

I've always been highly sympathetic to the CNT-FAI; I tend to fall on a more Anarchist side of the spectrum, and whenever the conversation turns around to "When has this happened in practice?", the Spanish Anarchists are generally a good answer.

To be sure, they were far from perfect, but as mentioned in the posts above, they instituted some incredibly important socialist reforms - land redistribution, collectivization of factories, phasing out of money, and giving a hell of a lot of credence to the feasibility of Anarchism.

George Orwell had a lot of praise for it; in Homage to Catalonia, he describes Aragon:


"Up here in Aragon one was among tens of thousands of people, mainly though not entirely of working-class origin, all living at the same level and mingling on terms of equality. In theory it was perfect equality, and even in practice it was not far from it. There is a sense in which it would be true to say that one was experiencing a foretaste of Socialism, by which I mean that the prevailing mental atmosphere was that of Socialism. Many of the normal motives of civilized life—snobbishness, money-grubbing, fear of the boss, etc.--had simply ceased to exist. The ordinary class-division of society had disappeared to an extent that is almost unthinkable in the money-tainted air of England."

And on that note,


Living in catalonia - aragon at summer 1936 may have resembled a post-revolutionary society, but with an expiration date.

Why do you say that? Just in reference to it's loss in the war, or are you claiming it was doomed to internal failure from the start?

[Jimmie Higgins]

What was it really like living under Socialism during the Spanish civil war?

Everyone always says that it is the 'closest thing to Communism ever achieved' but I was wondering how true this claim actually is. Are there many first hand accounts available that tell of what it was like living in those conditions?

As of posting this my knowledge basically amounts to what I've gotten off of Wikipedia, so any information, sources, or just analysis/opinions would be really helpful to me.Yeah, check out Orwell because there are good sections in that which describe the sort of self-organization among workers, pesants, and radicals as well as the mood of people and how things began to change rather quickly as the revolutionary anarchist and marxist forces began to waiver while the Communist Party (which barely existed before the revolution) organized the middle classes which feared the revolution from below but also feared Franco and gained a foothold that ultimately allowed them to dismantle the rudamentary workers power which had developed through the syndicalist and radical militias, liberated workplaces and liberated agricultural areas.

It is certainly an inspiring (though ultimately problematic) example of revolution from below and an organic leadership of revolutionaries and there are many parallels to the Russian Revolution and the Paris Commune.

I think the biggest political mistake of the radical forces was a misunderstanding of power. Even though there was de-facto "dual power" because while the Republic was the official government, they could not operate without the grassroots worker organization and distribution networks and they could not defend shit without the revolutionary militias and workers who defended the cities. But the tradditions that had devloped through the radical unions had a view that revolution was not going to be one power (worker's power) displacing another (capitalist power) but where no power was going to displace capitalist power (more accurately maybe: that our self-organization would just make the capitalist state irrelevant, rather than our self-organization being the new power that must actually remove the old system).

[TheEmancipator]

I think the biggest political mistake of the radical forces was a misunderstanding of power. Even though there was de-facto "dual power" because while the Republic was the official government, they could not operate without the grassroots worker organization and distribution networks and they could not defend shit without the revolutionary militias and workers who defended the cities. But the tradditions that had devloped through the radical unions had a view that revolution was not going to be one power (worker's power) displacing another (capitalist power) but where no power was going to displace capitalist power (more accurately maybe: that our self-organization would just make the capitalist state irrelevant, rather than our self-organization being the new power that must actually remove the old system).

I actually thought one of the main positives of the Spanish Revolution was the issue with power. For a start there were no figureheads unlike the Bolsheviks. And anybody power hungry enough would pretty much be displaced by the unions almost instantly (Didn't Orwell say that they had 3 prime ministers in 1 day because they tried to enforce gun control on the unions?).

I think the beauty of the self-organisation and lack of "power" as you call it is that it happened almost naturally and accidentally instead of being enforced by a tinpot substitutionist dictatorship. Its because of the uncertainty and chaos in the Spanish Republican faction that this system emerged and became what for me is the closest we may ever get to an anarcho-communist society.

The main problem is that this system was simply unsustainable in a time of war. The Nationalists already had a huge advantage with support from other fascists, and this "organised chaos" meant you had too many uncertainties within the military. As Orwell describes it, you had five or six trade unions or political parties fighting on their own terms in Catalonia instead of joining the Republican faction and Popular Army. While it was heroic, it wasn't very effective in a time of war.

[guy123]

I've always been highly sympathetic to the CNT-FAI; I tend to fall on a more Anarchist side of the spectrum, and whenever the conversation turns around to "When has this happened in practice?", the Spanish Anarchists are generally a good answer.

To be sure, they were far from perfect, but as mentioned in the posts above, they instituted some incredibly important socialist reforms - land redistribution, collectivization of factories, phasing out of money, and giving a hell of a lot of credence to the feasibility of Anarchism.
...
Why do you say that? Just in reference to it's loss in the war, or are you claiming it was doomed to internal failure from the start?

Hello people, I am more of a Trotskist. I think they lost the war because of a lack of a revolutionary leadrship. Every movement has leaders, even the anarchist "leaderless" ones, just not a democratically elected one. At the decesive moment of the revolution, the anarchist leadership betrayed the people. By refusing to take Bolshovik measures, like the creation of soviets, a organized revolutionary army, etc leaved everything to sponataniaty, and to a fascist counter revolution. This, of course, stems from the fact that they ignored the dialectial method and were not Marxist, at least their leadrship.

Good reading material from trotsky(since I am yet not able to post links, google them):
The Lessons of Spain:The Last Warning
The Class, the Party and the Leadership
*9. Trotsky about anarchism

[Jimmie Higgins]

No doubt there is much to admire about what revolutionaries had been able to help do and what workers themselves did - not to mention the actual heroics and such of the battles itself. But on this question of power, I think unfortuantely it was a huge mis-step. I don't mean power as in autocratic power, I mean the power from below, from the workers and the revolutionary networks that in fact existed and allowed for the revolution to happen. If it had just been the Popular Front, Franco would have marched all the way through. It was worker's power that stopped him while the Popular Front refused to arm workers and were trying to negotiate with Franco without much of a fight. That's the power I mean, and the CNT ultimately chose to back Popular Front power which was bourgoise power rather than the actual power they helped create and organize through their years of work.
I actually thought one of the main positives of the Spanish Revolution was the issue with power. For a start there were no figureheads unlike the Bolsheviks. And anybody power hungry enough would pretty much be displaced by the unions almost instantly (Didn't Orwell say that they had 3 prime ministers in 1 day because they tried to enforce gun control on the unions?).How would they have been displaced by the radical unionists? Because of worker's POWER! So it is an issue of power. Do you support the revolutionary and worker and peasant power (the worker's militias and CNT networks in the cities that basically managed distribution and helped worker-siezed workplaces and took over abandoned or misued workplaces, the organic political power of a generation of anarchists who sucessfully helped build a relationship among peasants and workers and helped convince many of them of revolutionary ideas). Or the power of bourgoise governments, of privite property, of USSR weapons.

The CNT, unfrtunately decided to forsake the real bottom-up power to have a popular front with the Republic and the CP (who ended up fighting to restore property rights).

The Republic actually told CNT reps that the Republic could not do anything unless the CNT made it happen. They actually asked the revolutionaries if the government should be disbanded. The revolutionaries responded that they hadn't considered such an event and they would have to debate it first!


I think the beauty of the self-organisation and lack of "power" as you call it is that it happened almost naturally and accidentally instead of being enforced by a tinpot substitutionist dictatorship. Its because of the uncertainty and chaos in the Spanish Republican faction that this system emerged and became what for me is the closest we may ever get to an anarcho-communist society.

The main problem is that this system was simply unsustainable in a time of war. The Nationalists already had a huge advantage with support from other fascists, and this "organised chaos" meant you had too many uncertainties within the military. As Orwell describes it, you had five or six trade unions or political parties fighting on their own terms in Catalonia instead of joining the Republican faction and Popular Army. While it was heroic, it wasn't very effective in a time of war.Well that's a pretty big problem for this concept of revolutionary change since there will ALWAYS be a war if workers try and take the world from it's current masters.

[human strike]

The Republic actually told CNT reps that the Republic could not do anything unless the CNT made it happen. They actually asked the revolutionaries if the government should be disbanded. The revolutionaries responded that they hadn't considered such an event and they would have to debate it first!

That was actually only the Catalan Generalitat rather than the entire Republican government.